


Hungry Seasons

by manic_intent



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, That Weird Western AU with telepathic wolves, weird western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 09:37:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: Silver padded noiselessly out of the trees once John got close to their nest. The young wolf was huge, and as she bounded over to rub herself affectionately against her Companion, she nearly knocked John right off his feet. “Yeah, yeah, git,” John said, tickling Silver behind her ears. She sniffed at his package, her jaws parting into a lolling grin as she sat down on her haunches. Seated like this, her head came up to John’s chest. Her silver-grey pelt was patched over her chest and tail with white and brown, and she nuzzled John’s cheek as he sat down beside her and pushed his face into her pelt.





	Hungry Seasons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kittycat78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittycat78/gifts).

> For @kittycat78, who asked for RDR2, John/Arthur, telepathic wolves. 
> 
> In general, I prefer not to write crossovers because I don’t really want people to need context of multiple canons in order to understand the story; and because I might not be aware of the details of the 2nd ‘verse. However, I’m happy to write prompts that reference general elements. OP originally asked for an iskyrne AU, but I’m unfamiliar with that, so this is more like a weird western with fantasy elements.

John always shivered when he passed a hangman’s block. The one in Strawberry stood at the head of the steeply-built town, a rough-hewn platform straddled by a massive bar. A woman spun at the end of a rope, her neck broken and her tongue sticking out of her mouth. The head of her wolf sat sightless under her feet, its bloodied fur crawling with flies. Its pelt was probably already at the tanner’s. A dead Strider and her Companion-wolf. 

Ducking his gaze, John shuffled quickly out of town and into the trees. He knew he cut a strange sight on foot. John didn’t look like a beggar, not with the holstered guns at his hips, and he was young and hale. There was no reason that he shouldn’t have a horse—if he were normal. John ducked into the undergrowth between the trees once he was reasonably sure that he was out of sight of Strawberry and the road. Branches crunched underfoot as he walked deeper into the woods, his package hugged to his chest. 

Silver padded noiselessly out of the trees once John got close to their nest. The young wolf was huge, and as she bounded over to rub herself affectionately against her Companion, she nearly knocked John right off his feet. “Yeah, yeah, git,” John said, tickling Silver behind her ears. She sniffed at his package, her jaws parting into a lolling grin as she sat down on her haunches. Seated like this, her head came up to John’s chest. Her silver-grey pelt was patched over her chest and tail with white and brown, and she nuzzled John’s cheek as he sat down beside her and pushed his face into her pelt. Breathing in her scent, John briefly forgot the hanged woman. 

A sensation of curiosity-interest-hunger pressed into John’s mind. John pushed back, sharing the memory of the woman, the dead wolf. Horrified, Silver snapped her jaws shut. She lifted her nose to the canopy, the sharp-bright corners of her mind growing dense with sorrow. “Don’t howl,” John whispered, patting Silver’s flank. “Not yet, not this close to town. Look. I got us something.” He unwrapped the package. “Stole it from the general store.” 

Silver nodded, hunger distracting her from her sense-sadness. She would’ve known what John was carrying long before he’d come into view. Her cold nose snuffled excitedly against his wrist as John unwrapped the packet of smoked sausages in a flourish. 

“Hey,” John said, laughing as Silver tried to snap up one of the links, “you’re meant to share, Miss. _Hey!_” 

Silver shouldered John off-balance, scooping up the sausages in her mouth and darting for the trees. He yelped, scrambling to his feet and diving after her. “C’mon!” John hollered, in between gasps of laughter. “We’re meant to share. Ain’t just yours. You ain’t the one who can’t live off raw rabbits and fish. Silver!” 

Roots and knots of stone and soil threatened to trip John up as he stumbled after Silver up the steep slope. This was more of a game to Silver than actual selfishness—she was heading for their hidden nest, and only ‘running’ as quickly as John could keep up with. “I’m gonna getcha,” John yelled after her tail. “Just you wait, I’m gonna—” 

Silver stiffened to a halt. She fed John with a sharp ping of warning-wary-danger and backed up, ears flattened to her skull. John crouched down into the undergrowth and peered past Silver’s shoulders through the trees. Their nest wasn’t visible from here, hidden past a shelf of rock and soil, tucked under the exposed roots of a tree that called the topmost part of the shelf home. It was filled with boxes that held spare clothes and supplies and a few things that John had found here and there over the years. Tiny, strangely-shaped bones, silver cigarette boxes, colourful image cards, a many-thumbed set of picture books. 

A big man stood before the cave, smoking. His blue shirt was rolled up to his elbows, and a black bandana hung loosely over his throat. He had a dusty black hat with a brown leather band, discoloured jeans folded into muddy boots. He wore a pair of gleaming Schofields at his hips and a hunting knife, as well as a pouch slung over his shoulder. The intruder smelled of gunpowder, gun-oil, leather, and smoke. He had three days’ worth of stubble and dirty blonde hair that tickled his collar. 

Silver bared her teeth in a soundless snarl. Loping out of the cave was a Companion wolf, black and sleek, smaller than Silver. Female. The Companion wolf had one of John’s picture books in her mouth, which she dropped at the big man’s feet. Sniffing the air, she looked directly at where Silver and John were hidden in the undergrowth. The big man sniffed and blew out a grey cloud. “Y’all ain’t fooling no one over there,” he said. He had a low, rumbling growl of a voice. “Sawtooth can smell you both.” 

John set his hand into Silver’s scruff as she shrank down onto her belly. “What d’you want?” he called, careful to keep the tree between him and the stranger. 

“How long have you been living feral like this, kid?” 

“Ain’t a kid,” John said, bristling. He was reasonably sure he was at least nineteen this year. Maybe older. He’d stopped keeping track because Silver didn’t keep track of things like that. Age for John had been a useful thing. He’d grown bigger, stronger, faster with a gun. Silver had grown bigger, stronger, faster with her teeth. 

“Okay, son, alright,” the big man said, amused. “Call me Arthur. This is Sawtooth. What about you two?” 

The sharp focus of Silver’s mind radiated wariness-curiosity-assent. “John,” John said. “Uh, and Silver.” 

“Been seeing you walking around Strawberry. If you think stealing from towns like that’s a good idea, well. Didn’t you see the gallows? Can’t y’all feed yourselves off the land?” 

“The land don’t make sausages,” John said without thinking and regretted it when Arthur guffawed. 

Stubbing out his cigarette, Arthur said, “Guess it don’t. But if you think you’re gonna get away with it, you got another think coming. Strawberry’s called lawmen up to these here parts. ‘Strider infestation’, they’re calling it. Winter is a hungry season, and when people get hungry, they look for blood.” 

The hanged woman, the dead wolf. “Silver and I will be fine. So fuck off,” John said. 

Arthur exchanged a glance with Sawtooth. The black wolf tilted her head, ears flicking as she made the wolf equivalent of a shrug. “There’s a safer place up in the mountains,” Arthur said.

“Yeah, right. Any further up from here’s Wapiti land.” 

The Wapiti didn’t suffer incursions on their land lightly. The murderous conquest that the colonial government had waged across this part of the world for centuries had ended in a semi-hostile stalemate. Colonial weaponry and First Nations powers cancelled each other out—for now. At least the Wapiti still had a border. After the Wounded Knee Massacre, the Diné had raised a magical barrier around Dinétah, locking out unauthorised intrusion. John didn’t blame them. 300 Lakota people were killed at Wounded Knee, including women and children, a mass murder that had earned 20 US soldiers Medals of Honour.

“Ain’t you ever curious why you’ve got Silver?” Arthur asked.

“No.” Silver was a gift. John wouldn’t have survived his childhood if she hadn’t shown up out of the blue the moment he’d hit puberty. She wasn’t a curse like everyone said, wasn’t some kinda Native hex or a sign of the Devil. Silver was Silver. 

“Well, if you ever are. Head up past the creek to the lightning-touched tree. You know it?” 

“I’ve seen it.” The blackened tree past the creek was past the Wapiti border. 

“You’d find us there. If you ever wanna talk. Or hide from something.” Arthur flashed him a sharp smile and loped away, the black wolf at his heels. 

Silver nudged John’s flank. He knew what she meant without her even having to feed it to his mind. They had to find somewhere new to hide.

#

The lawmen brought in dogs and the Army. Silver and John retreated upslope, where hunting was scarce, and the world grew colder. Closer to Strawberry, corpses decorated trees as rotting fruit, suspected Companions and humans both. They couldn’t all be Striders. When John had seen the bodies, he’d known how lucky he was. Most of the dead were women, many of them nonwhite. He would’ve been killed long ago if he’d been anything less than what he was—a white man. The few times John had been caught thieving, he’d been able to steal enough to pay off his bounty. Hell, the post office had even given him friendly advice each time. Anyone else with a suspected Companion would’ve been shot on sight.

It looked now like his luck had run out. Silver kept pinging John with worried impressions of snow and cold and hunger. John tried to ignore her as he forged after her through the snow, too tired to hide his tracks. They’d had to flee their last hideout when a posse had happened upon it by accident. John didn’t need Silver’s finer senses to hear the baying of the hounds in the distance, the thunder of hooves. He would run if he still had the energy. 

Silver bounded forward in the snow, turned, and barked at him. Laughter wheezed out of John. “Ain’t ever heard you make that sound before,” John said. Silver loped over, nudging John in the back. “Yeah, I’m getting. I’m getting.” She fed him an image of a blackened tree, a sense of closeness. “What? Surely we ain’t that close to the border.” He must’ve gotten turned about by the snow. 

Another bark, more anxious this time. Silver kept looking behind them as she drove John on. She didn’t care about borders, or about danger that she couldn’t see. Silver knew hunting dogs, however. Knew men with rifles on horses. John cursed as he broke into a run. His lungs burned in the thin air. Sweat chilled down his back as he stumbled through the snow, forging on. The creek. John broke out of a copse of trees and saw the blackened tree just as the pack of dogs charged over the slope, barking as they surged toward him. Silver spun around with a snarl, urging John to keep running. 

“Won’t leave you,” John gasped, fumbling for his pistol. The first shot snapped a hound out of its lunge, making it whimper and kick in the snow. “Go away! I don’t wanna hurt you,” he yelled at the dogs. The lead hound started forward, ready to leap at Silver—then it cringed with a whine, tucking down its tail. The other dogs stopped barking, whimpering and backing off.

John turned. A huge white elk stood by the blackened tree, his crown of antlers twisting taller than the dead branches. The elk took a warning step forward, the air shivering around him. Whimpering, the dogs fled away through the snow until only the spots of blood from the injured hound remained. John holstered his pistol and slowly held up his empty palms. The elk studied him with calm, too-intelligent eyes. A Companion. John waited for the Strider to show, but after a while of waiting and freezing in the snow, the elk looked to a side. 

“Arthur?” John gawked. There was no mistaking the big man picking his way through the trees with a black wolf at his side. Arthur glanced at John and walked over to the elk, murmuring something that even Silver’s ears couldn’t catch. The elf snorted a gust of warm breath and turned, trotting away into the deep snow. 

Arthur walked over; thumbs tucked in his belt. “So you’re the cause of all that noise,” he said. 

“The hunt, and, uh.” John couldn’t stop watching the elk go. It was so _big_. 

Arthur followed his gaze and grunted. “C’mon then. Before the two of you freeze out here.” 

“We’re on Wapiti land,” John said, refusing to budge. 

“They know you’re here. Didn’t you see that elk? Or the owls? C’mon.” Arthur turned and forged back up the way he’d come. Silver glanced at Sawtooth, which stared calmly back, tail raised. A dominant wolf, unafraid of Silver’s size. Silver didn’t back down or twitch her tail beneath her legs, but she did avert her gaze politely as she followed behind John and Arthur. 

Now that Arthur pointed it out, John did pick out the occasional owl in the trees, watching. “Where’re we going?” John asked. 

“Border settlement.” 

“Border what? I ain’t heard of that. I thought the Wapiti don’t allow intruders.” 

“They don’t. They keep out anyone who might want to do people in here harm. I’m guessing you ain’t one of those. Be respectful and keep your hands away from your guns, and you’ll be fine.” 

“Fine, but not welcome?” John knew the difference between that.

Arthur shot him an amused look over his shoulder. “We’ll see.”

#

The settlement was a huddle of old cabins, pens of livestock, and some horses. It sat right on the border, by John’s reckoning. A young Wapiti man with a Springfield rifle slung against his back was waiting for them just outside the settlement, a white and brown horse by his side with a large eagle settled on the saddle. “This is Eagle Flies, son of Chieftain Rains Fall,” Arthur said as they drew closer. He jerked a thumb at John. “This here’s John. And Silver.”

Eagle Flies surveyed John and Silver curiously. “The hunting party that turned back at the border. They were chasing the two of you. Why?”

“They’ve been rounding up every Strider hereabouts,” John said. When Eagle Flies frowned at him, John confessed, “Also, I might of stolen a few things from some towns and such.” 

Arthur chuckled. Eagle Flies shot him a quelling stare. “Glad to see you find petty thievery funny.” 

“They’ve been culling anyone suspected of having a Companion for years. Didn’t need much reason to call the hounds,” Arthur said. “Besides, a thief could be useful against Cornwall.” 

“If he’s a good one,” Eagle Flies said. 

“Good enough.” Life had taught John how to walk quietly, how to pass without trace. He just didn’t often have the luck to patch. “We’ll owe you people for letting us stay here. I’m grateful. We’re willing to work. Help out where we can.”

John’s earnestness got through. Eagle Flies softened a little. He was younger than John if John had to guess. “I’ll think about it. Until then, don’t cause trouble,” Eagle Flies said. He got on his horse, his eagle Companion hopping onto his shoulder as Eagle Flies took the horse through the settlement and into the trees. 

“Let’s get you settled in,” Arthur said. He paused. “I don’t think I need to say this, but don’t steal anyone’s shit.”

“I’m not an idiot,” John said. 

“Maybe you are, maybe you ain’t. C’mon.”

#

Life in the unnamed settlement was strangely structured, occupied by a strange bunch. There was a black man who spent most of his day fishing or talking about fishing, a pair of Chinese sisters who regarded everyone with suspicion and kept to themselves, and a large brown family out of Los Hermanas who ran the duty rosters and kept the settlement fed. The only thing everyone shared was that they were all a Strider of some stripe or form, though only Arthur and John had wolves.

“This ain’t permanent,” Arthur said when John asked why the settlement wasn’t named. 

“Looks pretty permanent to me.” The cabins were old and carefully patched. 

“Everyone else will head south once the winter thaws.”

“But not you?”

Arthur grunted. He was smoking at a sentry outlook overlooking the border, a spyglass in his lap. Sawtooth was nowhere to be seen. John sat on the log beside Arthur with Silver curled at their feet. “Yeah, well. Sometimes Eagle Flies has things he wants me doing.” 

“Like this ‘Cornwall’ gig.” 

“Yeah.”

“That Leviticus Cornwall? Of the Cornwall Company?” 

Arthur shot John an appraising look. “Well now, someone’s mighty informed for a street thief.” 

“Just because I can’t read don’t mean my ears ain’t open. What’d he do to the Wapiti?” 

Arthur smoked for a while. He said in a softer, angrier voice, “Some people get so rich they think the world should suit them, rather than the other way around. He thinks there’s oil ‘round these parts and is angling to raise money for a war so he can take it.” 

John blinked. “Him and what army?”

“US Army, maybe.” 

“Won’t they run into the same problem as before?” 

“Maybe. Maybe not. The chief ain’t angling to find out. That’s where Eagle Flies and Paytah come in. They’ve got a plan to hit Cornwall where it hurts. Quietly. Maybe break him out his thirst for oil.” 

“That a good idea?” John didn’t know Cornwall, but wealthy, powerful white men made for dangerous enemies.

“War’s coming whether the Wapiti like it or not. The plan’s detailed. Better than anything I could’ve come up with.” 

“Where do you and Sawtooth come in?” 

Arthur blew out a gritty stream of smoke. “A while back, I got real sick, and the tribe saved me. Sawtooth and I owe them that for the rest of our lives. Most of the time I ain’t here—I run errands and keep an ear to the ground on their behalf outside. With things as they are now, though, an extra gun here and there don’t hurt.” 

Silver pinged John with a sleepy affirmation. She thought Arthur was honest—she liked him, and she loved it here. That should’ve felt dangerous, but John relaxed instead. “If Eagle Flies feels he needs more people, I’d like to help.” 

“That’ll be up to him.”

“How long have you and Sawtooth been out here? Doing this?” 

“Reckon it’s well on over ten years now,” Arthur said, scratching his jaw. “Before that, I kinda lived the way you did. Stealing what I could. Robbing people at gunpoint if I couldn’t. I’ve done plenty of things when I was younger that I regret.”

“So this is your way of making it up?” 

Arthur laughed. “Hell, this ain’t about redemption. Rains Fall and the rest don’t need my help. This is just me helping out my friends, friends who I owe and love. That’s all there is.”

John tried not to feel impressed and was impressed anyway. Something was grounding about Arthur’s confidence, his self-assurance. It drew John close, closer than even Arthur’s looks did. He wasn’t the only one. Silver rested her great head in John’s lap, looking calmly up at Arthur. She fed assurance into John until he tickled her behind her ears. “She likes you,” John said.

“I can guess.” 

“How? You can’t hear her.” 

“I don’t need to hear another person’s Companion to read ‘em. Same as I can read you. Ain’t hard to tell whether someone likes me. Same way it ain’t hard for me to tell when someone fancies me.” Arthur winked and chuckled when John flushed bright red and sputtered.

#

“Wasn’t a total disaster,” Arthur said when John regrouped with him at one of Arthur’s safehouses, an hour away from the Cornwall heist.

“Getting caught wasn’t a total disaster?” If Peytah hadn’t decided to double-check on John and Silver…

“Yeah, well, we didn’t leave any witnesses. And nobody got seriously hurt. Ain’t a total disaster by my books.” Arthur patted the saddlebags. “I’ll fence the stuff we looted a ways past Valentine. It won’t get traced back to the tribe.” 

“Sounds like you’ve done this before.” 

Arthur nodded as they hitched their horses by the safehouse. The settlement horses didn’t get spooked by Silver’s or Sawtooth’s presence, but they eyed the wolves warily, snorting. “I do what I’m told. Some days it’s work like what we just did. Most of the time I’m off finding things on lists,” Arthur said.

“You’re happy doing all that?”

“Sure. I like it.” Arthur bent, tickling Sawtooth behind her ears. The black wolf huffed. “So does she. It’s better than what we used to get up to.” 

“I can see that.” John wasn’t so sure of it himself. 

John had been mostly indifferent to the struggle between the First Nations and the colonial government for most of his life. Living in the settlement had taught him how wilfully ignorant he’d been, but he’d lived for so long for himself that living for something else was going to take getting used to. He looked at Silver, who nudged him with her snout and radiated acceptance-curiosity. She wanted to stay. She liked the new hunting grounds, the warmth of a hearth. She liked Sawtooth. The wolves curled up in a furry heap by the door as Arthur let them all into the safehouse, closing the door behind them to shut out the cold. 

As they ate supplies cooked over the small hearth, John snuggled up with the wolves for warmth, his head tucked over Sawtooth’s flank and his belly wedged under Silver’s head, bowl on her shoulders. Arthur smiled to see it. “What?” John said. Silver twitched awake as he spoke, but at her sleepy push of question-curiosity, John petted her back to sleep. 

“Sawtooth ain’t usually this friendly.” 

“Oh.” John glanced over at the black wolf’s head, but Sawtooth didn’t budge it from where she’d pressed her muzzle against John’s hip. “She seems fine to me.” 

“She likes you.” 

The air in the small cabin felt charged, the tension prickling under John’s skin. He rather liked it. It was the same strung-tight sensation he and Silver felt during a hunt, the same breathless-joyous anticipation they knew in the slow time right before a storm. John finished his portion and set it down before he dared answer. “What about you?” 

Arthur had turned away as he ate. “I like you fine,” he said, low and smoky. He got up from his seat and picked John’s bowl up, heading out to wash it in the creek. John stared after him. Silver shoved her nose into his gut when John tried to curl up on her. 

“What?” John protested. He yelped as Sawtooth pressed her cold nose to the back of his neck. Silver nudged him heavily in the ribs and sent him an impression of Arthur and the water, of the charged time before snowmelt, where the alpha male and female wolves of a pack would choose to mate for life. John laughed, shoving at her cheek. “That’s just normal wolves. Ain’t you or me.” Companion wolves didn’t form packs. There weren’t usually enough of them. Nor did their human Companions necessarily get along.

Silver sniffed loudly and looked over John’s shoulder at Sawtooth. Sawtooth’s ears twitched, parting her jaws in panting amusement. She leaned over John to lick Silver’s muzzle, then looked expectantly at John just as Silver pushed John an image of the open door. “Fine, fine. I’m getting,” John said, trying not to laugh. Or get nervous.

He didn’t have to go far. Arthur was washing the bowls in the creek, wiping them down by the time John got close. He glanced behind at John and looked back over at the cabin. Silver and Sawtooth were streaming out of the door. They glanced over at John and Arthur, then streaked away into the woods. Arthur got up. He looked steadily at John, who chose to skitter closer, to run his cold hands up Arthur’s arms, the span of his broad chest. Arthur huffed, whether in amusement or anticipation John couldn’t tell. He kissed John playfully on the nose, then gently on the mouth as John leaned up eagerly into his touch. 

They made it back to the cabin with only minor mishaps, snickering as Arthur’s coat briefly caught against the door, and John’s hat rolled off to a corner. Arthur closed the door and chivvied John over to the cot, which got crowded once they were both sprawled over it. John didn’t care. He was busy getting his hands on every bit of Arthur he could touch, busy learning to kiss, learning how to move against Arthur as Arthur hissed and bucked against him. “You done this before?” Arthur whispered into John’s ear. 

“Y-yeah. Why?” 

“Oh?” Arthur kissed John on the cheek, on the nose, the mouth. “When?” 

“Ain’t any of your business,” John said, prodding Arthur’s ribs. John ran into other Striders now and then, some of them in towns, some in the wild. Usually, they avoided each other, but sometimes—especially in the cold months, before the snowmelt—John got curious. 

Arthur laughed and ducked his head, tossing his hat off the bed. He worked out John’s belt and pants, then spat in his palm and got his warm hand past John’s underclothes to his cock, squeezing already thickened flesh. He kissed John before John could speak, stroking John’s throat and cheek with the gentle fingers of his free hand, his cock pressed to John’s inner thigh, hot and hard. John whimpered. He scratched his nails desperately down Arthur’s back and moaned as Arthur’s laughter shook through him. 

Rough fingers squeezed deliciously tight around John. He thrust into the pressure, gasping shallowly against Arthur’s throat. He thought about biting down, tasting the coppery-quick blood, listening to Arthur snap and snarl at him. John grazed his teeth against sweat-damp skin, and Arthur hummed low and deep as though he knew what John was thinking. Arthur’s hand tugged harder, stroking John to an inexorable brink, spit-wet fingers stroking his uncut tip, his tightening balls. John keened as he clenched his fists into Arthur’s shirt, bucking as he broke. In the slow time between them, John drank down the scent of sex, the unsteady breaths between them, the warm, clean weight of Arthur’s lust. Arthur kissed him, rubbing himself lazily against John’s leg until he groaned and went still. 

As they got cleaned up at the creek, John said, “This ain’t like what the wolves think.” He hadn’t meant to say it, but he’d known it needed saying. John fancied Arthur, sure, but he didn’t need more from Arthur. Not yet, maybe never. He needed time to tell.

Arthur shot him an amused look. “Yeah, well. You ain’t a wolf, are you? Though it surprises me that you were chosen by one so fine.” 

John scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I knows what I mean,” Arthur said, grinning as he dared John with his eyes.

John tried tackling Arthur into the water and got wrestled down into the snow instead, slapping and shoving at each other until they fetched up against a tree. They kissed until their Companions returned, a jackrabbit in Silver’s jaws and a pheasant in Sawtooth’s. John grasped Arthur’s hand as Arthur helped him up, holding on for a moment longer than necessary. The warmth faded from his fingers as Arthur sauntered back to the cabin. Silver glanced up at John, questioning. He pushed his fingers into her fur as he looked into her eyes, coming to an accord that only they could hear. 

“You coming?” Arthur called. 

“Yeah,” John said, for him and Silver both. They went.

**Author's Note:**

> Refs:  
https://www.livingwithwolves.org/about-wolves/language/  
https://thewingedpen.com/2017/11/06/writing-about-native-americans-a-diversity-conversation-with-kara-stewart/
> 
> In less depressing wolf news for USA: puppies! https://www.geek.com/news/watch-californias-only-known-wolf-pack-has-three-new-pups-1799564/
> 
> The barrier around Dinétah: a reference to Trail of Lightning, an amazing book if you like modern dystopias/Weird Westerns.  
\--  
twitter: @manic_intent  
on my writing process, prompt policy etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com


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